Smartphone App May Help Diagnose Child's Cough

BOSTON (CBS) -- When your child is coughing, it can be hard, even for a doctor, to distinguish between a cold or something more serious but researchers in Australia were able to reliably pinpoint the cause of a child's cough using a smartphone app.

Kids cough all the time, often from the common cold or seasonal allergies but sometimes it's more serious like pneumonia. Kids may be misdiagnosed or treated unnecessarily with antibiotics or other medications because it's often hard to tell what their coughing is about.

Researchers were able to train speech recognition technology to recognize different coughs. When the technology was embedded in a smartphone app and tested on the coughs of almost 600 children, it was up to 97 percent accurate in distinguishing between illnesses like asthma, croup, pneumonia, and bronchiolitis.

However, they caution, that whenever possible, it should be used in conjunction with an experienced clinician.